
Our Duty in the Crisis. 



A DISCOURSE 



DELIVERED ON THE 



Occasion of t|e Rational Jfast 



SEPTEMBER 26, 1861, 



IN THE 



M. E. CHURCH, SIMSBURY, 



By Rev. ICHABOD SIMMONS. 



HARTFORD: 
PRESS OF CASE, LOCKWOOD AND COMPANY. 

1861. 






MCXGKMet 
•Wi « ,9,1 



Rev. Mr, Simmons, 

Dear Sir: — In behalf of the large and appreciating audience, who lis- 
tened with rapt attention to your eloquent and patriotic discourse delivered 
on the occasion of the late National Fast, Sept. 26, 1861, we respectfully 
ask of you a copy for publication. 

LUCIUS I. BARBER, \ 
JEREMIAH A. TULLER, > Committee. 
JOSEPH R. TOY, ) 

SiMSBURY, September 27, 1861. 



SiMSBURY, Sept. 30, 1861. 

Messrs. Lucius I. Barber, Jeremiah A. Tuller, Joseph R. Toy, 
Gentlemen : — I am gratified to be able to help, with pen and voice, the 
glorious cause so nobly supported by a loyal people. The discourse you 
request for publication is at your command. 

Respectfully yours, 

ICHABOD SIMMONS. 



SERMON. 



Text : Zech. XIII — 9. " And I will bring the third part through 
the eire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will trt 
them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and i will 
hear them: i will say, it is my people; and they shall say, the 
Lord is my God." 

The victories of God's enemies have always been only par- 
tial, and really savored of defeat rather than victory. The 
cunning of Satan overcame the scruples of our first parents, 
and the earth, the human race and all living things were 
cursed; but the devastation was not as complete as he 
would have had it. He would have had everything useful and 
beautiful destroyed, for usefulness implies reformation and 
beauty is heavenly. But he was disappointed. The earth 
should bring forth briers and thorns, and thistles should 
spring up in the path of the laborer; (this was Satan's 
triumph ;) but it should also be spotted with gardens of beau- 
tiful flowers, carpeted with broad acres of verdure, and with 
rivers like net-work winding through fruitful valleys. The 
grain harvest should annually cheer the exile from Eden, and 
beneath the ground, the myriads of crystal makers should be 
forming gems for future use and beauty. This was Satan's 
defeat. In the progress of the human family, though each 
unit should be born in sin, he has often been defeated. He 
laid his plans with the ken of an angel, but when the wicked- 
ness of the race had risen to the brim of vengeance, he saw 



6 

the whole lying fathoms deep beneath the floods of heaven, 
and floating on this shoreless sea, the ark of safety with its 
few faitiiful defenders of the righteousness of God. But he 
rallied his strength, commenced again his infernal engineer- 
ing, and was successful to his heart's content, until God met 
him on the plains of Jordan. Now it was the fire, and not 
the flood; (are not all the elements the ministers of his will?) 
The sun was just gilding the golden portals of the morning, 
when the fiery baptism of wrath fell upon those sin-intoxica- 
ted cities, and only Lot and his two daughters escaped to re- 
late this total overthrow of a wicked people. 

The entire discomfiture of great armies composed of thou- 
sands, by little bands of a few hundreds, are now the historic 
facts, as they were once the present proofs, that when the 
Almighty makes bare his arm, no power can stand against it. 
The fact connected with the prophecies and histories of both 
the Old and New Testament is, that it is a contest in which 
the superiority of numbers is a mere accident, bearing in not 
the slightest degree upon the certainty of success. What did 
Hezekiah care for the Assyrian army ? Their numbers were 
greater he knew, and their leaders mighty men of valor ; but 
every step they advanced toward the camp of Judah, they 
walked over a mine of death, whose explosion would be ter- 
rific. It did explode and the whole army perished. Such a 
mine is a wrong principle in any age of the world. At Cal- 
vary it was a defeat of numbers ; victory perched upon the 
banners of God's enemies when the Son of Man died, but 
such a victory as has been spreading dismay through the 
ranks of sin ever since. 

In the progress of nations, principles have survived powers, 
and honest hearts have conquered dishonest hosts. Not per- 
haps in the first, second or third special contest, but in the 
final summing up of the issue, where alone success is a fixed 



and certain quantity. The autograph of a whole nation's 
aristocracy, was attached to the uncharitable proscriptions of 
James the First, in the great strife of prerogative and privi- 
lege, and the embarkation at Leyden was a retreat of brave 
patriots to the bleak freedom of a strange country ; but that 
temporary triumph of selfishness and power was long ago ren- 
dered insignificant, by the brilliant achievements of thirteen 
sparse colonies intrenched behind a principle. It is the province 
of pure religion to recognize the power of principles ; it is right, 
the right prevails, therefore we shall prevail, is the grand syl- 
logism with which she rushes to every encounter. Thus 
armed, her one missionary stands before the strongholds of 
Paganism, and, despite its age-honored traditions, demands 
unconditional surrender; and it gradually yields to his re- 
quest. And this principle of right finds its way into every 
question ; and men should array themselves accordingly. 

It is justly assumed that government is divine. Its throne 
is the bosom of God. Hence, nations with natural boundaries 
and constitutions acknowledging the supreme will, rest not 
OP "*^^e uncertain demands of lawless passion, but on the fixed 
decree of the Almighty. And if any nation retains an injus- 
tice in its economy, a redress of grievance can be obtained in 
a legitimate way, suggested both by reason and revelation. 
This vast nation of States, the city of refuge for the world, is 
of all nations under the Sun a divine government. Art never 
suggested its origin, and has only helped its growth. The 
discovery of the continent was a triumph of inspiration over 
incredulity, and the landing of the pilgrims on its wildest 
coast was no more of human design, than that the rush boat 
of the infant Moses should catch in the reeds off abreast of 
Pharaoh's palace. The revolution of the colonies never had 
its equal in profane history. The conquest of Gideon, strange 
enough for romance, is its only equal in sacred history. The 



8 

more those seven years are reviewed, the more clearly the 
outlines of a Divine plan appear. The wisdom of its early 
legislations is a proverb in the world. In the declaration of 
independence, the brightest political and social idea of the bi- 
ble is the central sun : the equality of men and their certain 
inalienable rights, those of " Rfe, liberty, and the pursuit of 
happiness." In the struggle, only defeated where defeats were 
glorious, striking blow after blow with tremendous precision, 
and guided by a Commander-in-Chief who feared God and at 
night retired beyond the watch-fires, into the thicket, to pray ; 
— no wonder the old Indian, who fired at him eighteen differ- 
ent times, said, " it was impossible to kill him." And when 
at last the peans of peace rung through the land, and its wis- 
dom assembled to lay the foundations of its future greatness, 
it was God who directed in the intricate plan, and enabled 
them to gather up from the fallen republics of Greece, and 
Athens, and Rome, all that gave them true greatness and 
glory. 

The healthy, intellectual, social and moral influences, that 
have accompanied every ship and traveler through the wide 
world, have made us the North star of nations ; and the sen- 
timents that now prompt us to national action, because divine 
sentiments, are stirring deep thoughts and suggesting strong 
questions in their minds which can not be answered without 
imperilling thrones. The scriptures everywhere acknowledge 
God, a sovereign of governments as well as of hearts, and in 
every great conflict the government that is true to Him shall 
not be destroyed, but " refined as silver is refined, and tried 
as gold is tried ; " and the effect of the purification, that the 
people shall be His people, and He will be their God. The 
conflict now progressing with us is a moral one. It has shaken 
itself clear of political influences, and entered the domain 
of the religious. Expediences have become exigencies, and 



9 

compromises on paper, complements of powder. The nation 
is being purified. The silver and the gold are in the crucible. 
May the merciful God soon bring the pure metal forth ! The 
question with each one now is, what have I to do ? A plausible 
answer would be, 

I. Be loyal to the existing government. " Mankind are 
highly concerned to support that wherein their own safety is 
concerned, and to destroy those arts by which their ruin is 
consulted." If the government ever afforded us safety, it 
will do so until it is overthrown. It is no less able to-day to 
grant the strong arm of power to support its loyal subjects, 
than it was eight years since, when this trouble was only in 
prophecy. A change of government officers has taken place, 
it is true, but the President is not the government. He, with 
the poorest man among us, is only a subject. The Constitu- 
tion is Governor, and to its behests all ought to bow. 

Loyalty is in the highest sense liberty, and disloyalty is 
licentiousness. A safe government must limit its subjects, 
and absolute freedom is only the non-government of savages. 
"A secure and happy subjection is more to be esteemed than a 
dangerous and factious liberty." Hence, healthful restraint 
is benevolent, and just and equitable restrictions are profitable. 
Freedom to speak in every case would be fearful folly in 
some cases, and the pen is m-^re dangerous than the sword in 
any cause. It therefore behooves all who would render good 
service toiiheir country, to be loyal in sentiment and loyal in 
action. What in times of quiet would seem to be a mere 
ripple on the surface, in times of peril assumes a great import- 
ance. The hoisting a flag of any or all colors, when the 
national machinery is moving without friction, occasions but 
a passing notice, but in times of war it is laden with import- 
ant meaning. As it snaps in the breeze, it gives responses to 
the peculiar sentiments of one or the other party. The hands 
2 



10 

that hoist it are ready to grasp the musket and fight under its 
folds. It means every thing' that the national flag does not 
mean. Its declarations are as positive as those of the actual 
combatants, for no man can live in these days of blood and not 
be stirred to a positiveness that will make his position known. 
The expressions of thought weigh much at the present time. 
What would be considered, in the normal state of things, a 
powerless opinion, is now a torch in the incendiary's hand. 
Expressions now mean all the words will allow. They nerve 
the arm of those who can draw encouragement from them, 
and palsy the strength of those they oppose. True loyalty 
will stand by the star-spangled banner until constitutional 
action has rent it asunder, and speak only the sentiments of 
Union, till the Union is constitutionally severed./i 

There is nothing sure in rebellion. "As it is a weed of 
hasty growth, so it will decay as suddenly ; and that knot 
which is united in treachery, will easily be dissolved by 
treacheries." Suppose the enemies of the government suc- 
ceed in its overthrow. They have established a precedent 
that has made the elective franchise a farce, and republican- 
ism a monarchy without its head. The present movement is 
nothing less than the bayonet subjecting the ballot. The 
people voted, and the stirring reveille echoed from South 
Carolina to the Gulf of Mexico as soon as the vote was 
counted. The Yice President in the Senate had hardly 
declared the people's choice, when the first boom ^ the can- 
non aimed at Sumter told the full story ; that bullets should 
veto what ballots had done. The success of such a scheme 
would be hazardous. If Mr. Davis occupies the white house 
at Washington, will the people choose a president in 1864 ? 
Will the people choose a president ? Of course not, only as 
dictated by the impulses of fear. The people would not be 
permitted to do as they pleased, for his government, if formed 



11 

at all, would be an offense to a vast majority of them, and he 
knows it. The object of it is odious to more than twenty of 
the thirty millions. There can be only one course suggested 
that he would pursue : Absolute authority granted and held 
by one section of the people, and tame submission demanded 
of the other. It does not need a prophet to see that the 
ballot-box, once disgraced, the party disgracing it for a pur- 
pose will not suffer it to regain its reputation, until so well 
guarded by constitutional amendments unconstitutionally 
made, that it would have no power. Those who are not satis- 
fied with three votes for every five oxen who can manage a 
hoe, would, if to gain a point, strengthen that prerogative, 
and count every slave a man to vote and a beast to be bought 
and sold. The success of the South in this movement is the 
introduction of the worst kind of anarchy. If New England 
is dissatisfied at the next election of president, the precedent 
is before her. The same battle must be fought over again at 
Boston and in the Connecticut valley. 

Disloyalty is unsafe, because those who have proved treach- 
erous to one government, will also to another. And " it 
becomes all disloyal persons to consider, that when those who 
employ them have effectuated their impious designs, they 
will either disdain the instruments as useless, or destroy them 
as dangerous." Loyalty is always honorable. Rogues always 
pay deference to honesty, and if they should be lifted into 
stations where betrayal would be ruin, they would destroy 
their comrades as possessing a dangerous secret. 

Loyalty is not mere patriotism ; that is love of country, right 
or wrong ; but loyalty is love of country kindled into a brighter 
glow by the love of principle. It is the soul mounting above 
mere affection, into the atmosphere of heroic sacrifice. Life 
is not too sacred for its altars, and nothing but duty should 
keep any from the post of danger. Duty, stern duty alone I 



12 

Affection for wife and children or love of home should be no 
barrier ! Only the obligations of necessity should keep us 
quiet while an enemy threatens our land ! There is nothing 
before us but glorious victory or inglorious defeat. The latter 
is yet an impossibility in the patriot's mind. Peace only 
means shameful submission, and compromise with men who 
would burn a bridge to hurl innocent women and helpless 
children to destruction, — a mode of warfare the Sepoys of 
India would have shuddered to use, — compromise with such 
men for the present is impossible. I see no better way than 
to right up the old ship as she was before, and when we get 
in sailing trim again, give the disaffected, if they wish it, 
their discharge. But until then, there must be loyalty and 
bravery and sacrifice. If we were not able to cope with 
them, I have no doubt we should soon see wonders performed 
by the interposition of the Almighty. He helps us, but our 
emergency has not come. As long as there are instruments 
to use. He will work with those instruments, and it is not 
until every available man hastes to the rescue that he will mi- 
raculously interfere. If then our enemies out-number us and 
out-strength us, you will see the chariot of the mighty Jehovah, 
with his war-steeds snuffing the battle, standing at the head of 
his people. But now, He waits ; our army, scattered about in 
little bands, is suffering for want of men. Fill all these 
ranks ; bring all these instruments into effective action, and 
mark, all the discipline treason has gained during the past 
years of betrayed trust, and all the numbers multiplied by 
the prudent management of faithless officers, will not be a 
dust in the balance. The principle of action must be, use 
all the means and pray with faith. " Trust in God and keep 
the powder dry." 

II. It is the duty of every Christian man, the sooner to 
purify his country, to connect this great subject with his 



13 

religious faith. It is a profound respect paid to our Christian- 
ity, that we are so frequently called upon to fast and pray. 
Full well the magistrates know the power of faithful prayer, 
and their appeals to the churches for this kind of sympathy 
should meet with a cheerful response. And the more so in 
this crisis, as there are sins that lie at our own doors which 
have helped to aggravate, this terrible disease, and from which 
we need the crucible of war and want to purify us. Let none 
pharisaically place his hand upon his heart and repeat his blas- 
phemous catechism of self-righteousness ; .for the wrongs we 
have done, and the right left undone, for many years have 
been a dead fly in the precious ointment of our free institu- 
tions, and the fearful retribution has not delayed to come. If 
we were to trace many ^f our sins back to their source, we 
should find them not only springing from a bad heart, but a 
wrong idea. That is, the idea that all our national prosperity 
springs necessarily from our republican form of government. 
Except now and then a devout Hebrew who recognizes God 
in every providence, all have given glory to the minor influ- 
ences: Constitution, Congress, or idol President. It has 
been often said in national peril, and is often repeated now 
that the proud ship is tossing on the sea of blood, " Oh that 
Washington or Jackson could arise and grasp the spokes of 
the wheel ! " If Washington or Jackson were in the pilot 
house to-day, they would need the same God to pierce the 
thick darkness for them that Mr. Lincoln needs. National 
distress is Jehovah's opportunity to display his power. This 
forgetfulness of God has begotten an infidelity of the most 
dangerous character, and partially accounts for the lack of 
piety in our State and National legislations. It is strange 
that with Caesar, and Livy, and Gibbon, in the hands of the 
student, and smaller histories of the rise and decline of the 
ancient Republics, in every house library, we should boast of 



14 

the indestructibility of our government. The preservation of 
a government is not in its form, but in its spirit. Kingdoms 
may be righteous, and under them the people live happy and 
contented. Greater happiness is offered by a Republic, but 
only as it adheres to the Divine law, and shapes itself by the 
Divine economy. Happiness is not felt by any one man 
because he has voted ; his happiness will only be pure if he has 
voted conscientiously. So national happiness and security are 
not the result of freedom to vote, but spring from the satisfac- 
tion of having brought a willing offering to the Supreme 
Governor ; of having voted right, not right by the law of pol- 
itics, but right by the law of God. 

This trusting to government form rather than God has very 
much palsied the energies of government. We have ignored 
a great principle in the election of men without the least 
basis of moral character; drunkards, infidels and rogues. 
Trusting treasury, life and national character to them, we 
have left them to the harmless restraints of Republicanism. 
We are requested to pray for them, but not religiously ; it 
must be done politically, and the ministry must hold their 
peace. The efforts to carry on this great government without 
God, or with God just a little now and then, would be really 
amusing, if the questions involved were not too serious. 
The very agents God has chosen to renovate the world and 
bring all governments up into harmony with his own pure 
reign, namely, the church and the ministry, are shut out from 
all say and do, and forced to quiet themselves in waiting for 
deliverance from this Popish intolerance. If you wish to see 
a nation in a strait, with nothing but a political hand to guide 
her, witness the disgraced thousands fleeing to Washington 
after a universal disregard of the fourth commandment at 
Manassas ; and if you would see that same nation guided by 
religious principle, witness the indignant protests of a whole 



15 

church, ministry and Christian associations, and the immedi 
ate Sunday order of the pious Gen. McClellan, and the conse- 
quent discipline and constantly growing heroism of the entire 
army. The muscles of the nation are strengthened by relig- 
ious faith, and the President recognized it when he uncovered 
his head before the crowd at Springfield and besought their 
earnest prayers ; and by Gen. McClellan, who, hasting from 
the triumphs of Western Virginia to the command at Wash- 
ington, and going around through Cincinnati, stopped in the 
parsonage of Dr. Thomson of that city, and there, in tremu- 
lous tones, consecrated himself to the God of battles. I am 
glad of these frequent proclamations to fast and pray. When 
twenty millions, in deep humiliation, bow before the treasury of 
strength, plying with united faith its massive gates, and among 
them millions who have taken God at his word for years past, 
the prayer will not be in vain. The arm of the nation will be 
strengthened to-day. Brave men, on the tented field, the 
church is with you ! Wrapping around you the strong wings 
of our faith, we will bear you to our eyrie in the bosom of 
God ! It is yours to suffer, yours to die ; but the church will 
enshroud you in her warmest memories, and in every heart 
your names, like choice gems, shall be preserved ! Pray, oh 
pray before the battle, pray in the battle, and when you fire, 
take good aim and fire for the glory of God ! 

Another sin of which we are guilty, bearing directly upon 
our difficulties, is complicity with great crimes. The sin of 
human slavery is not alone with those that buy and use them. 
We have lent our means, our voice and our mighty silence 
to this terrible evil, and God has humbled us because of it. 
Arguments on the wrongs of slavery are fresh in your minds. 
I need not repeat them, but simply say as I pass, it is an 
awful crime against humanity and against God, and I give it 
as my firm belief that when He writes up his people, if He 



16 

is the New Testament God, soul traders and holders will find 
but little favor with Him. 

We have also cherished a mistaken philanthropy which is 
odious in the sight of real humanity and hateful to true reli- 
gion. We have compromised principle to escape a war, be- 
cause war means the loss of blood and life. War is only 
evil when for revenge or plunder. Its influence upon a 
nation is salutary, and recovery from it speedier and surer 
than recovery from a cancerous sin. It is justly said, " A 
just and necessary war is no sin at all. Its weapons, its ships, 
its fortifications are not more sinful than the plow and the 
pruning-hook. . . . Shall punishment, which is morally 
right when inflicted by national authority upon individuals, 
become suddenly wrong when inflicted far the same offenses 
on communities ? . . . Men do not convince us that war 
is evil, by pointing to desolated homes and wasted fields and 
smoking cities, or to commerce and manufactures standing 
stock still while the grass grows on the wharves and the ships 
rot in the docks." Such pictures of ruin there may be, 
"but at the same time, material ruin may have a side of 
grandeur, which, when time has worn away the smart, and 
history has cleared the eye, may outshine the most prosper- 
ous commerce and the most prolific tillage. The sacrifices 
of commerce and husbandry are nobler than its achieve- 
ments. It required only avarice and enterprise to build up 
a fortune, it calls for conviction and right-heartedness to sac- 
rifice it on the altar of the country. The deserted cottage 
of a true Union man in East Tennessee, who has saved his 
conscience at the expense of his property, would touch and 
move you more than the most prosperous homestead. Deso- 
lations and losses and sufferings in the cause of one's coun- 
try are evidences of the highest and truest prosperity ; of the 
noblest progress ; and seen in this light, they blossom as the 



17 

rose. This is prosperity of the national conscience and the 
national character; the growth of moral wealth. . . . 
Nor must it be forgotten in studying the effect of this war 
upon our national character, that a nation, like an individual, 
needs to be consolidated by trials. It must not only have a 
good government, but must be deeply and firmly convinced 
of its excellency. Now in times of peace, such vivid con- 
victions are not easily obtained. We are not brought in any 
practical way to make the comparison between the just prin- 
ciples of the government and the transient interests. We 
compare them, but we do it in the sunshine and amidst the 
flowers ; we do it rhetorically and poetically. We feel what 
is excellent rather aesthetically than ethically, and proudly 
fancy it were easy to make any necessary sacrifice. But 
there is a great difference between estimating a burden and 
actually bearing it. And when the trial comes to a nation, 
and the poetry of patriotism is required to become the patri- 
otism of sacrifice, that nation is not only tested, but if the 
test is endured, it is improved. Thus it is with us ; this war 
both proves and mproves us. That the nation rises under 
this load with a shout and bears it onward without shrinking, 
both shows what her convictions were, and gives her a 
strength and solidity which only the burdens and dangers of 
war could impart. As to the assertion that civilization or 
Christianity will be injured by the war, nothing could be 
shallower. As well might we show that these results would 
follow the execution of the laws against crime at any other 
time. For this is the same thing, only upon a scale of terri- 
ble grandeur. Why, the very aim of the war, and the war 
itself, considering its aim, are among the noblest illustra- 
tions on record, of the power of Christian civilization. 
Christian civilization might seem to pause for a moment be- 
fore the gigantic conflict, but it would only be in amazement 
3 



18 

at the mad wickedness which made the war necessary; at 
the forces which the rebels have mustered in so bad a cause." 
Let us stand by true principle, and if it now and then costs 
a baptism of blood, the integrity and vitality of the nation 
will be worth the sacrifice. It was a noble cause and great 
was the blessing for which Abraham journeyed to Mt. Moriah, 
to offer an only son as a token of firm allegiance to God's 
government ; and as noble the cause for which precious sons 
are now bound by willing parents to the nation's altar. May 
heaven bless every son that has gone up to the Mt. of battle 
and furnish a sacrifice that shall spare his life ! Our fear of 
war has aggravated our difficulties and driven us into a mul- 
titude of sins. We now reap the whirlwind. 

Sinful indulgence, waste of wealth and hardness of face 
against the poor, have been crying evils among us. A need- 
less expenditure is dangerous to individual character, and 
ere it has gone through many generations, meets with God's 
fearful curse ; so when such extravagance becomes a national 
custom, it will not be permitted to run through many de- 
cades, before a visitation of calamity marks the Divine dis- 
approval. Are you guilty in this respect? Has the one- 
tenth been set aside as sacred? Are the first fruits or the 
profits thereof given into the treasury of the Lord ? If we 
fast with sincerity to-day, these questions demand attention. 
It is well to repeat over the decalogue slowly and thought- 
fully as we review our life before God. Begin at the first 
solemn charge, striking so deeply at the dearest idols of our 
hearts. Let each "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not" ring 
through the desolate halls of our neglected moral nature and 
awaken conscience from its easy reclining. Add to these the 
eleventh commandment; the new one of Christ: "A new 
commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." 
Then add the golden rule, " Do unto others as ye would that 



19 

others should do unto you." Then ask, "Where is my 
neighbor?" and "Who is my neighbor?" and when you find 
him, love him; if he is in darkness, change places with him 
in imagination, and then let your own imagined darkness 
prompt your course of action; if he is in distress of any 
kind, take you his distress and give him your freedom from 
pain, and then, when you are in his place and he in yours in 
imagination, let your cries for his help prompt you to your 
duty when he cries for your help. 

It is well to review personal piety to-day. Blow the dust 
from the Bible covers and gather up the fragments of our 
broken vows. The young man who can not go to the war 
for a reason, has no excuse if he returns not to God sorrow- 
ing and fasting for his sins. The old man, who has enjoyed 
all the immunities and privileges of a benevolent nation, un- 
molested and unrestrained, may consistently bemoan his 
ingratitude to the Father of mercies, and thank Him with 
real fervor for a home where plenty so richly abounds. Who 
has nothing to fast for to-day ? Oh think of your neglected 
Sabbaths, your awful profanities, your deceits, your covet- 
ousness; think of your presumptuous indifference to holy 
things, your wandering prayers, your superficial faith ; think 
of your wasted morals, your prayerless children, your altar- 
less families, your thankless tables ; think of the providences 
disregarded, how many times you have been raised up from 
sickness and death; think of your happy location, far away 
from the boom of cannon and the shrieks of dying men ; 
think — Oh think of yourself as a sinner, a part of the cause 
of this terrible war, and let your faith in a pardoning God 
give wings to your feet as you haste to stay the falling sword 
of his vengeance. 

The nation, as one agonizing penitent at the altar, should 
be humbled before God. Wherever absolute vigilance is not 



20 

necessary and defense a duty, every man, civil and military, 
statesman and officer, should consecrate this day to worship. 
Let the President and august Secretaries appeal to the cabi- 
net of eternal wisdom ! Let the General and his staff learn 
by communion with Christ how to meet a mighty foe ! Let 
every soldier flee to his tent and prostrate himself in humble 
prayer ! Let the whole North and West heed this call for 
general humiliation, and methinks I read the speedy result. 
See the soldier's arm with valor nerved ! His brow glistens 
with the radiance of success ! The flag brightens with in- 
tenser glory ! Every stripe is a scourge of scorpions for 
treason, and every star a gem in the patriot's crown. The 
hosts of a fatal delusion tremble with weakness ! A palsy 
seizes the arm that would strike ! Confusion sits on their 
banners and shame on their faces ! Sennacherib's host gives 
way! For "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon" comes 
gleaming from its scabbard, and before it who can stand ! 
Such will be the power of united prayer. Then let all pray ! 
Let the Episcopalian lay aside his book and groan his heart's 
wants before the throne ! Let the Calvinist leave his " de- 
crees " and the Arminian his " choice " and the Sons of 
Roger Williams their baptidzo, and let them come as one to 
the prodigal's home, and pray that the fatted calf may be 
killed, the nation restored to plenty and happiness, and the 
feast of rejoicing and merry-making begin ! 

But we must let God work in his own way. His way may 
not be as our way. Praying is not dictating. I know not 
the full issue of this war ; I have my thoughts. It is not 
conducted by our Statesmen for the purpose of liberating the 
Southern slaves; it is the government saving itself. The 
declarations of the President prove this ; the actions of his 
advisors prove it ; the kind of men largely composing the 
army proves it, and the President's modification of Gen. Fre- 



21 

mont's proclamation silences all dispute on the question. 
But what God may do is another thing. This is not of hu- 
man legislation. He is certainly punishing the entire nation, 
but it falls more heavily in some quarters than in others. 
Will/ this blow falls more heavily on a particular portion of 
the people, philosophy and philanthropy might both suggest 
a reason, but let the nation keep praying, keep doing, stick 
to the Constitution, and wait ! If slavery is divine, it can 
not be crushed out. It will survive all war and needs no 
boundaries to define its rights. If it is wrong, and the dark 
days of the Jewish Lawgiver do not furnish creeds for the 
more charitable dispensation of the Christian era, and the 
Paul and Onesimus question after all should be decided in 
the negative, then it must perish. Constitutions can not pre- 
serve it ; it can not be nursed into vitality. It must yield 
to God's behest. With strong public sentiment hedging its 
advance like a broad deep sea ; with the mountains of preju- 
dice and wrong education on either side, and the Constitu- 
tion behind it, what will it do ? Let God suggest ; the slaves 
of Egypt were once in the same predicament. It is for us 
to trust Him. We should incite no insurrections, break no 
laws, (save those that bind our conscience, suffering the pen- 
alty willingly if we do break them,) say no hard things, call 
no hard names, keep our temper always, and advance as fast 
as Providence opens the way. I should rather be the slave 
than the master, if God makes his decisions on this question 
in his usual way of justice. 

We are now in the midst of bloody war. Do we desire 
peace ? Let us multiply our numbers, ammunition and 
prayers, and we shall have peace. Do we hate war ? Let 
us make it short by a speedy and decisive victory. Do we 
dread taxation ? Let us haste to restore our nation's stolen 
property and our taxes will be modified. Peace is impossible 



22 

at present. The text suggests when peace may be expected. 
The nation must pass through the fires. From her sins she 
must be purified as gold and silver are purified. She must 
own God as her God ; then there will be peace. St. James 
also suggests it, " First pure and then peaceable." Till then, 
there must be war. If " the sun of our liberties " must set, 
it must " go down in a sea of blood." If the stars and the 
stripes trail on the earth, it must be when the last brave tar 
turns his glazed eye to the skies and the last soldier sleeps in 
his glory. 

But that flag will not fall. Where one sailor or soldier 
falls, another to avenge him shall seize the weapon from his 
relaxing grasp ; the ranks shall close up and the battle move 
on. Hundreds will fall, but thousands will return to disband 
amid happy wives and mothers and jubilant children ; will 
return to the plow with fervent gratitude that it plows free 
soil ; to the manufacture, with satisfaction that they have not 
died " all slaves," but live " all freemen." The banner may 
be bullet riddled and bayonet torn, — this will only evince the 
inspired heroism that defended it, and its scars will be our 
glory. Like the grandsire, reverenced by admiring children, 
and grandsire still, though vrith limb at Bunker Hill, Valley 
Forge or Yorktown, arm disabled and breast deeply scarred, so 
that flag will be reverenced and honored, though age and ser- 
vice pale its beauty. We will live under it while we live, and 
we will pray in the words of Webster, that when we die, " our 
eyes with their last feeble and lingering glance, may behold 
the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored 
throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and 
trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased 
or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto 
no such miserable interrogatory as ' What is all this worth,' 
nor those other words of delusion and folly, ' Liberty first and 



23 

Union afterward,' but every where, spread all over in charac- 
ters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds as they float 
over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the 
whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true 
American heart, ' Liberty and Union, now and forever, one 
and inseparable.' " 

I pray for our Land, that the right and the true and the 
good may rise above the wrong the false and the evil. The ken 
of a prophet is given unto me. By a well balanced faith, poised 
over the sacred promises of the Divine Omnipotence, I look 
down upon the nations as grand divisions of God's army, 
marching on with firm tread from the dim-lighted caverns of 
modified barbarity, to the high and broad table lands of a 
perfect civilization. Israel, the cast out but not forgotten 
nation, is hasting with deep contrition to its beloved Jerusa- 
lem ; Italy, by the light of the sparks struck from her chains 
through Garibaldi's steady strokes, is assuming the gospel and 
a higher national honor ; Russia has already changed the 
wailments of her millions of serfs to loud acclamations of glad 
rejoicing ; Central Europe is consolidating fast into righteous 
Republics; the North is retrenching the prerogatives of the 
Crown ; Austria must fall into the upward line of march, 
however reluctantly ; Asia, with her China and India, rich 
isles and treasures of wealth and produce, is girding her loins 
for this pilgrimage of nations ; France, with the blood of her 
patriots still reeking on her altars, is looking, through her 
free-thinkers to her last and successful revolution ; England, 
modified by the successes of the American Colonies, only a 
monarchy because she has a Queen and an army, is ^slowly 
yielding to the national tide ; the minor nations have joined 
the train ; and at the head of this grand stampede walks a 
giant of four score years. A Samson in his strength. His 
brow is decked with the interminable forests and rolling 



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prairies, rich with future harvests of the North and West. 
His feet shod with the golden sandals and rich produce of 
California and the South. His right arm is the Pacific and 
his left the Atlantic, and in his hands is the wealth of the 
seas. Above him, nailed to the staff, is his banner and motto : 
The Star-lighted flag of the Home of the Free ! Purity and 
Righteousness are the secrets of strength ! The Constitution 
is our safeguard, the Bible our law, and our War-cry, God 
and Humanity forever ! 



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